Why is it so hard for government to do the right thing?

I’ve written a couple of blogs about President Obama’s fight to avoid spending billions on stuff that we don’t need (Why We Fail and F-22 Update). I think the case for getting rid of this useless spending is iron clad. (See note 1 below.)

But why is it so hard to stop this the wasted spending?

The immediate answer: The Science of Advertising. There’s more, but lets look at this first.

The science of advertising – selling an idea with slogans, attractive pictures, and catchy tunes – started up around the beginning of the 20th century when governments decided their war in Europe needed an extra kick because they were having trouble getting enough men to send out and die. (See this page from Australia’s Charles Sturt University.) Today, it’s easy to think, “That’s just propaganda! I would never fall for that.” But there are big, big dollars at stake here. Your average defense contract is usually several billion dollars. And that’s plenty to pay for disciplined and scientific research into what works and what doesn’t. Companies wouldn’t spend billions on it day in and day out if it didn’t work. Advertising has come a long way.

The basic ideas in advertising remain the same. The key is to reach peoples deepest emotions, such as the desire to ‘belong’ and their subconscious fears, and convince them that whatever you’re selling satisfies those deeply felt needs. That works with products (“The Marlboro Man”) and people. Industry journal Advertising Age has compiled the top 100 ad campaigns of the 20th century. Ronald Reagan’s successful “It’s morning again in America” campaign is a top 100 ad campaign; as is Johnson’s successful “Daisy” campaign that buried Barry Goldwater’s chances of being elected by scaring people out of their wits with the prospect of nuclear war.

The basic conclusion driving this blog, then, is advertising works! Unquestionably. Undeniably.

So … Suppose that some devious but brilliant scientist had perfected a way to bombard voting machines with a “Vot-R-Way-Ray” and change the results of any election. Elections could be bought and sold at auction. You would be justifiably upset. Right? (…. Right???) My question is, what’s the difference between that, and a defense contractor contributing enough money to a congressional campaign to bury the other candidate’s ads. It’s a formula that seldom loses. This is why politicians become corrupted by the system. Any politician that refuses to become corrupted loses the next election and drops out of the system. Only the corrupted remain after a few election cycles.

Thinking about things like this can be fairly depressing because there doesn’t seem to be a way out. Just as a match and gasoline equals fire, money and politics equals corruption. I’ve suggested a few changes that could fix things (The Town Meeting Model) but I’m resigned to the conclusion that most of these ideas have about a snowflake’s chance in Hell.

One idea that might have a chance is the concept that campaigns need to be on a more level playing field by providing public financing instead of relying on private money. This idea has had a rough slog lately. Obama, for example, came up with a really effective way to collect money via the Internet and (in one of his relatively few genuine flip-flops … so far) changed his mind and refused public funding so he could spend his huge war chest instead.

It would seem to me to be simply more productive to ban paid advertising in political campaigns in the first place. I think it would work just fine if we all had to get our information from CSPAN. But, in this country, the Supreme Court has given solid First Amendment rights to “commercial speech” – advertising. In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that a corporation had a First Amendment right to freedom of speech on political issues even when they were only trying to make more money. (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti). Simply put, corporations can buy and sell campaigns and there’s nothing we can do about it – right now.

But corporations don’t have a native constitutional right to purchase your local senator. Their right is derived from a simple US law that say corporations have most of the same rights that people have. US Code states, “the words ‘person’ and ‘whoever’ include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals”. (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/1/1.html) A lot of people, such as Al Gore, believe that we have created a monster with this concept of an “artificial person” (and one, like a vampire, that can live forever).

A lot of what is wrong with America might be fixed by simply passing a new law stating that corporations are not people.

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note 1 –

Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania (Frequent contributor “RP” has called him, “one of the biggest crooks yet unhung.”) is pushing hard to pound dollars into ratholes that not even the Pentagon wants. When the press asked him recently why he wanted to spend $400 million on new VH-71 presidential helicopters that President Obama said he doesn’t want and Defense Secretary Gates has ridiculed, Murtha has basically responded that since we’ve already pounded a lot of money into this rathole, it’s a shame to stop now.

It’s interesting to note that Murtha raised more contributions from the defense industry than any other House candidate in the just past election season. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Murtha raised more than $438,000 from donors and political-action committees tied to the defense industry. Another Democrat (and member of Murtha’s House Defense Appropropriations subcommittee), James Moran from Virginia was in second place, but with less than half of Murtha’s take, $226,000, from defense contractors.

And now, in a July 18 editorial, the New York Times said, “One of the most favored insiders in Representative John Murtha’s rich churn of defense earmarks has pleaded guilty to criminal charges, shedding light on a twisting, pay-to-play money trail. The contractor, Richard Ianieri, admitted taking $200,000 in bribes from another big defense contractor in the Murtha orbit, and is cooperating with investigators.” The Times goes on to document how this works: “Mr. Ianieri’s company hired the lobbying firm of Mr. Murtha’s brother Kit. The company soon was blessed with money from an $8.2 million defense earmark. … Murtha … took the $8.2 million from another contractor that had severed ties with his brother’s lobbying firm.”

Murtha is, of course, a long time veteran of many, many election cycles. My “Gravel Pit Theory” argues that anybody who has been reelected as many times as he has is guaranteed to be as crooked as a dogs hind leg.